Last week, we saw Hannah Thornton on the mend and beginning to thaw toward her daughter-in-law, Margaret. With the crisis past, John and Margaret can now attend to other concerns, and each other, in this final chapter. If you need to start at the beginning, click here for Chapter 1.

Chapter 16 – Becoming Mrs. Thornton 

“It is late, love,” he said.

“I am almost finished,” she said apologetically as she dipped the pen in the inkwell. “I’m writing the order for the butcher. I’ve only been keeping a day ahead, but tonight have managed to make an order for two days.”

“That reminds me,” he said, pulling the small sack of coins out of his pocket. “This belongs to the cookhouse.”

Her brow furrowed as she opened the bag.

“Tim Smith,” he said.

“Oh, I had forgotten. He paid!” she said, looking pleased before her eyebrows pressed together again. “He paid you?”

“No. Higgins had the honor.” At her quizzical expression, he continued. “Higgins and some of the others took offense to Smith’s treatment of you and his attitude toward the cookhouse. They decided to intervene.”

“They did not hurt him, did they?”

John gave her an unpleasant glower. “I do not think so, though I have a mind to box his ears myself.”

“Whatever for?”

“No man in England should speak to my wife in such a fashion,” he said crisply.

“I was perturbed at the time” she admitted. “His payment feels like a tiny triumph, though. Isn’t it an admission that I was right and he was wrong? That is enough for me.”

John growled.

She circled the desk to unroll his fingers from the tight fists they’d made and place his arms around her waist. “My grand knight,” she whispered as she pressed her cheek to his lapel. “It feels to me as if ages have passed, and I’m certain Mr. Smith would also rather forget the entire matter. Perhaps the master could forgive this one small slight. After all, if I am to work among your laborers I may occasionally hear words stronger than those spoken in a London tearoom.”

“That is what bothers me.”

She leaned back to study his beloved face, still fierce in his protectiveness of her. “Why should it bother you? This is my life now. The life I chose. The life I longed for when I thought I’d lost you forever.” 

His arms tightened around her but he was not yet ready to dismiss his concern. “Some of the men may be too rough.”

She put her hands on his waist to shake him, though he barely moved. “I missed the people of Milton. I like being among them, and if one occasionally nettles me, that is a price I am willing to pay.” 

His eyes narrowed. “The thought of you within arm’s reach of a man willing to defy you — and curse at you! — makes my blood run cold.”

“He did defy me, but I think his curses were more general than specific.” She smiled. John betrayed no humor. “John, I am happy,” she said with a firm voice. “For the first time in years, I am truly happy, and part of that happiness stems from my work at the cookhouse. Please, do not try to protect me too much. The other men handled Mr. Smith. If I ever feel truly offended or threatened, I will tell you immediately. I will rush to your office and demand that you slap him with a glove, or whatever you gentlemen do. I will tie my colors on your jousting lance and — ”

He finally smiled and tipped her face up for a kiss that lengthened sweetly. “You are everything to me, Margaret,” he murmured.

“I know, my husband, and I couldn’t be happier about it.”

His eyes glowed in the way they did only for her. “I have planned a treat for you. We have been so distracted I forgot about the most exciting event of my entire journey.”

“What was it?” she asked, more interested in sliding her hands up the smooth wool of his jacket sleeves.

“While in Liverpool, I inquired about the finest ship and best time of year for passage to Spain.”

She gripped his shoulders as she gasped, “Do you truly mean it?”

He nodded.

Margaret tried to rein in her excitement by thinking practical thoughts. “We will have to see how your mother progresses, and there is Fanny’s happy event to anticipate,” she reminded him.

“We will take all of that into account, but you must resign yourself to a trip to Cadiz before the end of the summer.”

She threw her arms around his neck. “You are wonderful! It is what I want above all things, and I did not even realize it!”

He bent to kiss her with enough thoroughness she swayed breathlessly. “Perhaps not above all things,” she amended without opening her eyes.

“I sent Jane upstairs a half hour ago,” John said in a voice roughened by passion. “She helped Mother to bed and now I think I shall help my Mrs. Thornton in the same fashion, though with a vastly different purpose.”

She stepped back so she could slip her hand around his arm. He applied the familiar pressure of his fingers on hers as they walked, side by side, into their future.

THE END

I hope you have enjoyed this project that began as an exorcism of Richard Armitage from my brain, and resulted in a 26,000 word sequel to Elizabeth Gaskell’s North and South. I write original historical romance as well so, if you enjoyed this free read, I hope you will look for my books here or at most reputable ebook vendors. Happy reading!

In the previous episode, we left the elder Mrs. Thornton in bed after a heart seizure, John across the channel buying cotton and unaware of her illness, and Margaret managing the household and Fanny. If you need to start at the very beginning, click here to go to Chapter 1.

Chapter 15 – Becoming Mrs. Thornton 

Mrs. Thornton’s strength grew and her periods of lucidity lengthened over the next day. She did not remember Margaret at first, but once Fanny explained who she was, the memory returned and stuck.

Margaret had had no word from Le Havre, not even a congenial letter posted before Mrs. Thornton’s illness. Worry ate at her, but what could she do except sit in the sickroom, tending to all the patient’s personal needs that Fanny overlooked?

The sound of a horse thundering past the house the next evening lifted hope that climbed higher when pounding footsteps echoed on the stairs. Margaret backed slightly away from the bed, knowing he would want to go straight to the dragon — that he should go straight to her — who slept soundly after drinking a small cup of broth. Margaret tried to see her as John would, pale and frail after these few days without solid food and steady activity. Her countenance would alarm him.

The door swung back with a thud and he stood there, mud-stained, his expression wild. “Dear Mother, what have you done to yourself?” he asked in a low, tortured tone. She roused at the sound of his familiar voice, awakening fully when he sat on the bed to cradle the bony hand the rested on her stomach in his. “Mother, I am here.”

Fanny reached across the bed as she tried to hide her relief at her brother’s arrival. John shifted to envelope his mother’s and sister’s hands with his own. The three Thorntons sat for a moment of perfect unity. 

Then Fanny whined, “Oh John, where have you been? She has been waking for me but then asks only for you, of course. No one else would suit her.”

Mrs. Thornton gazed up at him, proving Fanny’s jealous claim with the transparent adoration in her eyes. He leaned down to kiss her forehead. She emitted a happy hum at the unusual demonstration of her son’s affection. When he straightened he searched the room. “Where is — ah, there you are, love.” He freed one hand to beckon Margaret into a group where she was not sure she belonged. When she hesitantly reached the range of his arm, he slid his hand to her waist, drew her to him, and pressed his face into her breast. He breathed in deeply, as if collecting her scent, much as she did from him. Beneath the unfamiliar smells of travel were his soap and…him. He drew another hitching breath and she knew only she felt his trembling.

She did belong because John needed her.

She slipped her hand into his hair and pressed her face to the top of his head to murmur quiet reassurances. “All will be well, John. She is much better than she was. Truly.”

He nodded, then turned to look at his beloved dragon again, and the dragon stared devotedly at him. Margaret tried to pull away now that he had collected himself, but his arm tightened convulsively on her, keeping her with him as he spoke quiet, encouraging words to the woman who had stood by him, steadfast, for his whole life. 

“Was your trip successful?” Mrs. Thornton whispered.

“Do not worry about such things,” he chided.

“Tell me,” she said.

So, as Fanny yawned, he spoke of his journey, of buying enough raw cotton to keep the mill running into the spring and whom he bought it from and how much he’d paid, until his mother dozed and Fanny eagerly escaped.

He carefully withdrew his hand from his mother’s.

“Did you get any of my messages?” Margaret asked. John shifted off the edge of the bed to lead her to a chair where he pulled her into his lap. 

“What are you doing?” she whispered, flustered by his uncharacteristic behavior. He rarely embraced her outside of their private rooms. Now, to be draped all across him when his mother could see them or a servant might walk in at any time…it was simply not how John Thornton behaved.

“Humor me for a few moments,” he said on a sigh. “I have missed you for an entire week.”

She relaxed to bend willingly against him, even sliding out of her slippers so she could tuck her feet between his leg and the arm of the chair. “I love you so much,” she said.

“And I, you,” he murmured as he rubbed her arm. “I received your message in Liverpool. I was already hastening home, eager to see my bride. I hired a horse instead of a carriage and gained only an hour or two.”

She nodded against his shoulder. “I am so glad you are here. I know you are the only person who can comfort her.”

“She seemed perfectly comfortable when I arrived,” he said reassuringly. “When will Dr. Donaldson visit again?”

They spoke of the details of Mrs. Thornton’s situation while he held her cuddled against him. He closed his eyes when he had a grasp on his mother’s condition. Margaret’s weight in his lap, her warmth and willing affection for him, returned the balance that had disappeared during his journey. Oh, he’d been the same commanding Thornton his colleagues expected during his business dealings. However, when he was alone the distance from her ate at him. 

He’d found it damn disconcerting. How had he survived thousands of quiet evenings with Mother and Fanny without pining for a welcoming, intimate smile meant only for him? Had he really been satisfied to retreat to his bachelor’s chamber with the forebodingly empty mistress’s bedroom next door?

No, he’d never been satisfied. Resigned and lonely, yes. Suffering, yes, when he thought Margaret’s love lay beyond his reach. In his pride, though, if anyone had asked him at any time after she’d refused him whether he desired the partnership of marriage, he would have claimed to be too busy for a wife while deep in his heart, deep where only Margaret had ever dared to tread, black loneliness and white-hot longing tore at him.

Hours alone in a hotel in Le Havre brought back those forlorn months and reminded him of the hole in his being Margaret filled. He’d wished he’d brought her with him as she’d asked. Standing on the rolling deck of a ship, sprayed with freezing seawater as he searched for the first sight of England, he’d vowed never to squander even one day of her companionship. 

Of course, with the advent of Mother’s illness, he knew it was best that he hadn’t taken his wife to France. From Margaret’s detailed description of the episode and her ability to chronicle every improvement and nearly every word the doctor had spoken, he knew she’d been a constant, steadfast caretaker. 

His wife tilted her head back to invite a kiss. Their lips met in a brief caress that spoke volumes of who they were together.

It was not exactly the ardent homecoming he had imagined, but it was more than enough.

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Margaret approached the door with a stack of laundered nightgowns. 

“If you could only convince her to leave,” Mrs. Thornton said to Dr. Donaldson as he checked her breathing. 

Margaret paused in the hall, not out of sight but unviewed by the woman sitting on the edge of the bed and the man who now checked her pulse. 

“Everyone hovers around me,” Mrs. Thornton said. “Just today I had to send John back to the mill. What does he mean by coming here to hold my hand at eleven o’clock in the morning?”

“They have been concerned about you, as your children should be,” Dr. Donaldson said soothingly.

“If only she would go I could have some peace. She pesters me. I am suffocated by her silly questions.”

In spite of the sympathetic indifference Margaret had cultivated since the day of her betrothal, her mother-in-law’s words stung. Did she truly want the doctor to ask her to leave? To go where?

“Then you must tell her,” Dr. Donaldson said, “since your strength seems to be returning along with your opinions.”

Mrs. Thornton released a beleaguered sigh. “I suppose you are right. I must tell her that her place is with Mr. Watson and not here weeping ‘Mamma, Mamma, Mamma’ all over me as if at my wake.”

“You might say it more gently than that, Mrs. Thornton.”

“How did I ever produce such a delicate flower for a daughter?” Mrs. Thornton asked with a grumble.

Dr. Donaldson waved Margaret into the room. “Ah, here is Margaret who will remember just how she assisted her own dear mother to walk. Mrs. Thornton is adamant that she be allowed to dress and use the water closet, but I have made her agree she will not do so unassisted,” the doctor told Margaret with a commiserative smile.

“Of course,” Margaret said, still a little lightheaded from the realization that it was Fanny whom the dragon wished to drive away, and not her new daughter-in-law.

*  *  *

Oh, no, next week brings the end! The final chapter will be posted here on May 14. Click here to find it!

Last week, John left for Le Havre to buy cotton and Margaret met her first obstacle in the Marlborough Mill’s cookhouse. Now she is suddenly plunged into being in charge during a household emergency! If you need to start from the beginning, click here to go to Chapter 1.

Chapter 14 – Becoming Mrs. Thornton

A bright, freezing morning greeted Margaret the next day. She had not slept well. The chill from the altercation in the cookhouse plagued her all night despite being wrapped in John’s robe and cocooned under several extra blankets.

After her normal breakfast from a tray in her room, she sought refuge again in her husband’s office downstairs. She scraped a layer of frost from the window to reveal the bustle of activity that caused the now familiar sounds in the yard. The workers’ exhalations puffed like steam from locomotives as they hurried across the cobbled pavement, some seeking the relative warmth of their workrooms, others, recognizable by layers of coats and scarves, kept outside by their duties.

Margaret turned away to attend to some business correspondence with Mr. Lennox before beginning a soothing letter to Aunt Shaw in which she declined the invitation to visit for The Season. She tried her best to address Aunt’s concerns that she would soon become a complete heathen if she did not return to the civilized social whirl of London for at least a few weeks each year.

An unusual thump distracted her from her task.

She looked at the wall shared with the drawing room, expecting to hear additional sounds that would indicate a maid was sweeping beneath furniture or cleaning the hearth. The resumption of the normal stifling stillness within the house should have reassured her, but did not.

She rose and continued to listen attentively as she sneaked across the rug. She poked her head into the hall, but could see nothing amiss. She tiptoed a few steps to peer into the next doorway. “Mrs. Thornton,” she cried when she saw the figure in a black gown sprawled inelegantly on the floor. She knelt down to grip one of her mother-in-law’s hands and patted the back briskly. “Mrs. Thornton,” she whispered, braced for the woman to rear up with a scathing retort, but there was no response. “Mrs. Thornton,” she pleaded.

She had seen the face of death on her own dear mama, so knew the woman still breathed, yet the dragon would not rouse to consciousness.

Margaret ran to ring the bell then rushed into the hall to call for Jane in a shrill voice that would shock Aunt Shaw to no end. By the time Jane and a maid careened into one another at the door, Margaret was again kneeling beside Mrs. Thornton. She stroked her cheek and begged with her to awaken while the servants wrung their hands together.

After another half minute, Margaret ordered them into action. “Jane, give me that pillow so we can make her more comfortable, then bring a blanket to cover her. Sassy, go fetch my cloak and muff, then you are to stoke the fire in this room and Mrs. Thornton’s bedroom. I must find Dr. Donaldson.”

k

Margaret had rarely felt such relief as she did an hour later when Dr. Donaldson took charge of Mrs. Thornton’s care. After a brief initial examination, he helped them move the unconscious figure to her gloomy bedroom. She and Jane exchanged her constrictive clothing for a white cotton nightgown.

She sent Jane out in the hall while the doctor undertook a more thorough examination. As he looked in eyes and ears, and tested reflexes, her thoughts spanned all the possibilities she might soon confront and what action she should take for each, twitching her mind through a maze of abrupt turns and frightening dead ends.

His diagnosis pushed her into immediate action. “Mrs. Thornton has suffered a heart seizure,” he said. “Her survival of the initial shock bodes well, though I am concerned that she has not regained her senses yet.”

Margaret nodded her understanding.

“Has Mr. Thornton been sent for?”

“He…he is in Le Havre and not expected home for three days or more. I will go to his clerk and have word sent immediately. And I will send a message to Fanny, of course. Tell me, Dr. Donaldson, what should I say?” She bit her lip. “How grave a warning must I give?”

Having seen her through her own mother’s illness, he well knew Margaret’s steady temperament and inner strength. “Say that Mrs. Thornton is still in danger, but, barring another attack, I would expect her to regain consciousness along with all her faculties.”

Margaret startled poor Mr. Chives. He’d been deeply immersed in correspondence from today’s post that he must either hold for his employer’s return or take action on when she burst in without so much a cloak or gloves protecting her from the frigid weather.

“Mr. Chives,” she said breathlessly, “I must send messages to Mr. Thornton, however and wherever you think best so that they might intercept him. Can you help me? How many should I write?”

He gaped at her before recovering his wits. “Yes, of course, there is only Liverpool and Le Havre.” He tapped his finger on his lips. “Two for Le Havre. There is the hotel and his agent’s office.”

“Very well,” she said, striding to her husband’s desk for paper and pen. 

How quickly will John return, and what will the dragon be like as an invalid? Chapter 15 will be posted here on May 7. Click here to go to Chapter 15 after that date.

In the last chapter, Margaret’s frustration at her empty days overflowed into an argument. Today she visits John’s office where he will propose a solution.  If you need to start at the very beginning, click here to go to Chapter 1.

Chapter 13 – Becoming Mrs. Thornton

The large hand of the ticking clock pointed to one minute before the hour when Mrs. John Thornton appeared in the anteroom of her husband’s office.

“Good morning, Mrs. Thornton,” Mr. Chives said as he popped his short, wiry frame to attention. He turned on a heel to tap lightly on the paneled wood door to his right, then opened it to usher her forth. Margaret drew in a deep, restorative breath before following. How silly to be nervous about a meeting with her own husband, a man whose bed she’d crawled out of not four hours ago.

Of course Margaret had been in John’s office before, but the industriousness, the contained energy of enterprise, struck her anew. Ledgers filled shelves along the wall. Correspondence and reports waited in two tidy piles on the corner of her husband’s massive desk. Samples of raw fiber overflowed several small boxes on a table behind which a draped display of Marlborough Mill’s fine cotton cloth shone pristinely white from the wall.

Nothing hinted about the occupant himself, no clues about hobbies, no portraits or knick-knacks, though anyone who knew him understood the very lack of personal items told a great deal about John Thornton. The blood of commerce coursed through his veins as thick as the blood of family.

“That will be all,” John said to Mr. Chives with a dismissive nod to the young man. He dragged a chair around so Margaret could sit beside him rather than across the desk where his visitors usually perched. “Sit here. I must show you some accounts for all of this to make sense.”

Margaret swallowed, feeling even more out of place than she had. Accounts? She’d helped Father and Dixon with the running of the household, but the accounts John managed ran for pages and pages. She slipped into the chair, internally chastising herself for making such a fuss last night.

John began to explain his idea. “When Higgins and I organized the cookhouse, I ended up, by default, as a sort of steward. I am charged with supplying the food, and originally, with finding the matron, though Mary has stepped into that job well and no longer requires any guidance from me. There is, of course, the money from the hands that must be tallied. As you know, I do not want the meals to become charity, so the income and expenses must be kept properly for review by my bookkeeper.” He waved his hand over a pile of papers on centered on the desk. “The job requires too much of my time.”

He looked at her with the glow in his eyes. “You have been trained, I believe, to run a household in London at least as grand at your aunt’s. I have no doubt of your ability to manage Marlborough Mill’s cookhouse, if you are interested.”

“Manage it?” she croaked. “Do you mean I would be responsible for all those tasks you just listed? That I would help Mary Higgins to plan the meals, and then order the food and account for the money?”

His stern nod assured her that he would, indeed, expect her to perform the job, and do it well.

She clasped her hands in her lap, then glanced about his office to make sure they were unobserved before she all but leapt at him, locking her arms around his neck and whispering as effusively as she dared. “I would like it above anything. Oh, do you really mean it?” A fearful thought stilled her. “Do you truly believe I can do a good job?”

“I will help you for as long as you need. And I think Mary Higgins will, as well, don’t you? I am certain she would much rather deal with you than me.”

She nodded into his stiff collar, gave him another hard squeeze, then sat back down. “Show me,” she demanded, searching the stack of papers for the cookhouse accounts.

He unexpectedly put his hand to her cheek as he drank in the vision of her eager face. “There she is,” he said, lowly but exultantly. “There is my spirited girl.”

She flushed even more and turned her head to kiss his palm, overcome by her stunning love for him. He slid his fingers behind her neck to pull her to him for a kiss the likes of which neither of them ever expected to indulge in while in his office.

He pulled away with a throaty moan to gaze down at her luminous face. His voice was gruff. “The next time we are in London I would like to have a small likeness of you painted. I will sit your portrait here, on my desk. Try to remember the exact expression you wear right this minute, for that is how I wish you to always be looking back at me.”

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Just four days later, John prepared to sail for his journey to Le Havre. Margaret barely had her feet under her at the cookhouse but promised none of his workers would starve in his absence. She clung to him one last time in their sitting room before he departed for Liverpool in the middle of the night. “Please, hurry home as fast as you can,” she whispered as they descended the stairs. The dragon waited in the entryway to say her own restrained goodbye.

Margaret threw herself into her new work. She checked orders for the week with the butcher and the grocer. She made sure Mary had enough help. The least enjoyable task required approaching the few hands late in paying for their meals, though she checked with Mary first to determine if any of the delinquents were in financial distress due to illness or some other problem. 

All but one paid on the day after her request. On the second day, she approached the recalcitrant Timmy Smith at the table where he hunched protectively over a steaming bowl of mutton stew. His lower jaw jutted out when she stopped in front of him. He wore a black cap at such a jaunty angle it completely shielded his left eye from her view. “I dinna have your money,” he growled, peering up at her face in obvious challenge. 

“I’m so sorry, Mr. Smith, but you must bring it tomorrow,” Margaret said, “or you will not be given a meal.”

He scowled at her before shoveling an enormous spoonful of stew into his mouth. He grumbled something unintelligible to his neighbors when her back was turned.

The next day, she waited just inside the door, her stomach aflutter with nerves. “Mr. Smith,” she said when the familiar black cap bobbed under the low doorframe. “Are you prepared to pay your debt?”

“No, mum, I am not,” he said. He moved as if to proceed to a table.

“As I had mentioned yesterday, we will not continue to feed you if you refuse to settle your bill.” She tried to sound forceful despite her breathlessness. The convivial chatter in the room died quickly away.

He squinted down at her, the centers of his eyes like bits of coal in the winter gloom of his face. “I work hard at the warehouse, I do. I think the master can afford to fill my empty belly better than I can. What d’ya say, mates?” he said, looking around for support.

The other hands studied their feet or concentrated on the rarebit and dark crusty bread on their plates. 

“That was never the agreement, as you well know, Mr. Smith. You are not required to eat here, but if you choose to, you are required to pay just as your fellow workers do.”

He took hold of the two sides of his jacket as he leaned back to peruse her condescendingly. “I dinna choose to pay, but I do choose to eat.” He turned his back to her to find his way to a table.

“See here, sir,” she said, not sure what to do now. How might he react if the serving girls refused to give him a meal? 

Two large blokes rose to block his path and several other men stood up at the rear of the dining area. “Oy, Timmy! That’s no way to talk to her ladyship,” one of them called.

Smith turned sideways as if to pass between the two workers. They each caught an arm. When he began to resist, the men in back stepped up to help drag him out the door. His curses made Margaret’s ears burn. She hadn’t heard such language since waiting in a carriage near the London docks several years ago. Her stomach churned with disappointment at having such an altercation so early in her tenure. Fear that the man might become truly violent drove her out the door behind the scuffle.

The biggest man shoved Smith toward the center of the yard. “That’s no way to talk in front of Mrs. Thornton and these young girls. Go home t’ eat until yo’re ready to pay yor shot and show some respect.” 

Mr. Smith wiped his hands down his front and checked the angle of his cap as he glared at the men, then he stalked away with more foul words trailing behind him.

“Sorry fer that,” one of her saviors said as they re-entered the cookhouse.

“Thank you,” she breathed, repeating it again to each of the five who had stepped up in her defense.

“I like havin’ a hot meal every day,” the last one said with a shrug. “Leave it t’ Smith t’ try t’ put a fly in me soup.” Subdued chuckles wafted through the room, carrying the tension away, at least for the workers.

Margaret did not linger. She scurried across the yard to curl up on the chair at John’s desk at home, wondering where he was and what he was doing, how he would have handled Mr. Smith, what she should do differently to avoid such an uproar if she found herself in the same situation again. After a quarter-hour steeped in glum thinking, she sat up straight and turned her mind to sorting the cash and receipts for Marlborough Mill’s bookkeeper, determined to be productive until her presence was required at a somber dinner with the dragon.

Margaret briefly considered sharing the dilemma with Mrs. Thornton over the soup. She decided against it, worried that the woman would have Mr. Smith fired or, even worse, give him a raise in pay for defying her daughter-in-law.

*   *   *

Next week, Margaret must unexpectedly see the household through an emergency. Chapter 14 will be posted on April 30 here. Click here to find it.

Margaret Hale was one brave woman to become Hannah Thornton’s daughter-in-law. In this episode, their relationship begins to form and they are not destined for happily-ever-after. If you want to start at the beginning, click here for Chapter One.

Chapter 11 – Becoming Mrs. Thornton

Margaret did, indeed, love her husband. For the first week, with the dragon out of the roost, the novelty of the new marriage allowed the couple to be blissful, even if John returned to the mill on the second day. Margaret spent that afternoon exploring the public areas of the house. She tried to force a familiarity with her new home that she did not feel. The next day she went to the upholsterer’s shop, eager to make her decisions about her bedchamber before the matriarch’s return. She and John decided to hire the man who had hung the wallpaper in her parent’s Crampton house to paint her room a cheerful yellow, and their sitting room warm gold.

By the time Mother Thornton descended, the bedchamber had been stripped of all decoration and its bare walls waited for transformation. There was no turning back.

The dragon never uttered a word about it though Margaret had no doubt she was aware of the gutting. In every other way, in every other corner, the original Mrs. Thornton picked up the reins of the household as if a second Mrs. Thornton did not exist. 

She could not destroy Margaret’s happiness. Just the thought of John being a quick walk across the millyard spurred Margaret’s pulse, though she did not make that walk, knowing that he was busy from dawn to dusk and would not know what to do with her standing in his office. 

She wrote notes to their wedding guests, supervised her decorators, and adjusted her wardrobe back to Milton expectations. When she had no correspondence and their sitting room shone like an autumn sunrise, including a cozy, heavier sofa for she and John to share — though they seemed to always be downstairs in the evenings now — she resumed her regular walks around Milton to fill some of the hours of her days.

She asked once to accompany Mrs. Thornton on her daily inspection of the mill and was reluctantly towed along. But Margaret’s habit of chatting with instead of haranguing the workers did not suit the dragon. Margaret excused herself after being chided for the third time in the second workroom. The dragon let her go.

Several deep breaths returned enough calmness that she could walk across the mill yard without betraying her disappointment in both herself and her mother-in-law. She wandered until a tempting smell drew her to the cookhouse. The mouthwatering scent gave way to the sight of poor Mary Higgins elbow deep in dishwater while a full table of workers waited impatiently for meals.

“How can I help?” Margaret asked as she pushed up the sleeves of her brown wool gown.

“Oh, no, you mustn’t, Mrs. Thornton,” Mary said, horrified. “Two of the girls are sick at home but we’ll make do.” Margaret looked around until she found an apron and a towel. She dried a dish then carried it to a rotund woman who appeared to be just as overwhelmed with cooking and serving. She continued helping Mary until each worker had received a meal on a clean dish, then she alternated chopping potatoes for the cook and serving new arrivals.

Hours later, a silence fell over the last few hands who were eating late in the afternoon. Margaret glanced around to see what had subdued their companionable chatter. “Mr. Thornton,” she cried when she saw her husband’s silhouette at the door. She patted her hair self-consciously as she walked to him. “What are you doing here?” she asked.

“Looking for you,” he replied, clasping his hands behind his back.

“Oh?” She stepped outside since he did not seem inclined to come in. He also did not seem inclined to expand on his reason for being at the cookhouse. “Did you need me for something?”

He had been searching her face but now looked away across the yard. “Mother came looking for you at the office. She said she had…discouraged you in the carding room today. When she went to the house you were not there, nor had Jane seen you.”

Margaret frowned. “I have never before told Mrs. Thornton what I am doing or where I am going. Why did my absence cause enough concern today that she bothered you with it?”

The hint of a smile curved the corner of his mouth. “It has been hours since she last saw you. I think she was afraid she had run you off. Or perhaps that you’d gotten trapped in a warehouse.” When she didn’t reply, he looked down at her, the suggestion of humor replaced by anxiety. “In any case, her concern led me to worry, so I came to find you.”

“I am sorry for that,” she said, truly upset when she saw that he had, indeed, been worried. “It felt so good to be out and doing something useful that I lost track of time.” She smiled up at him. “Yet you knew just where to find me.”

His eyes softened and glowed in that private way that showed his adoration.

“I am glad you did not send your mother,” she added.

“She knows she should not have spoken to you so sharply in front of the hands.”

Margaret twisted her fingers together. “I am only a distraction in the mill,” she admitted. “I do not have a talent for urging the hands to strive harder.” She lifted her chin. “I am able to help here, though.”

“You cannot spend your days washing dishes in the cookhouse, love.”

The gently delivered endearment caught her attention more than a true scolding would have. She was always “Mrs. Thornton” when they were within earshot of people other than family. 

He could see her disappointment, so he added, “Miss Margaret Hale was not raised to serve stew to mill hands, and it is not appropriate for Mrs. John Thornton, either.”

She untied her apron with a brisk jerk. “I could help when they are short handed, like today.”

“Perhaps,” he said slowly. “I would hope Mary Higgins does not find herself in this predicament often.”

Margaret returned to the low-ceilinged room to hand her apron to Mary who scrubbed the now-empty tables. With only a few hours left before the end of the workday, all of the hands were busy in the mill. “Send for me if you ever need help again,” Margaret said.

Mary studied the floor as she nodded, and Margaret knew she would never receive such a summons. John still waited at the door. He did not mean to be overbearing. She knew he did not. Yet she could not help feeling as though the newly discovered wings she had been exercising since their wedding had just been clipped somehow.

“I will go to the house now,” she told him. “I have kept you from your duties long enough, I am sure.”

John watched her retreat, knowing that a shadow, a first hint of strife, had just passed between them, not entirely unexpected considering the adjustments she was being asked to make, but very, very unwelcome.

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Six weeks later, John sat at the breakfast table with Mother. Frigid winter darkness pressed against the windows, so black and heavy that even the lamps and coal fire could not completely defeat the chill. Margaret had watched him from his bed less than an hour ago, as she did each morning when he reluctantly slipped away to his dressing room. She’d smiled dreamily when he kissed her on his way out, as if she were a lady of leisure who would roll over to sleep the morning away, yet he knew that by now she was preparing for the day with Jane’s assistance.

A maid passed by the dining room door with a tray. Mother’s eyes fixed on her like a hawk on a mouse as the girl carefully climbed the steps. “Your wife becomes melancholy. What does she mean by having a her breakfast delivered every morning?”

A hint of anger stabbed him. He pushed it away. “Margaret asked about our household routine. I told her about our breakfast conversations, when Fanny was always hours from emerging. She suggested that we both might prefer to continue. If you would like her to join us in the future, I will be happy to invite her.”

Mother stirred her tea then set her spoon on the saucer with a clack. “Whatever suits you, John.” She ate several bites of toast before continuing, as he’d known she would. “You must see, though how she tends to be like her mother, brooding about with a shawl around her shoulders.”

Anger flashed again. “She is not like her mother whom, you will recall, ended up dying of what you dismissed as ‘low spirits.’”

“She sits for hours with a book in her lap.”

John clenched his teeth together. He knew this. He’d been drawn to the house by her unrest. He’d find her at the desk in their sitting room with a blank piece of paper in front of her, or curled in a chair in his office downstairs — the only public room in the house she occupied when he was absent — with an unread book or some untended piece of sewing in her hands.

She was always glad to see him, and the love in her welcoming smile wrapped around him like an unexpected warm blanket in the midst of a blizzard. He was happy beyond his dreams, yet knew the source of all his happiness did not share his complete joy in their new life together. Worst of all, he and Mother were partly to blame.

He wiped his mouth before setting his napkin aside. “You have given her no responsibility in the house. We have both discouraged her from involving herself with the mill, and last week you acted the matriarch when she had a few of my colleague’s wives for lunch.”

“Every new bride must find her own way,” Mother said, offended. “I told you when you first showed your interest in her that she would turn up her nose —″

“Stop,” he said sharply. “Margaret is not putting on airs.” It would be pointless to explain to his mother that his wife was as open to him as the account book sitting to the left of his fork. Before the luncheon Margaret thought she was hosting, she admitted to a hope she might be able to be friends with Gormley’s wife, a young woman she remembered from their wedding. After the event, when he’d asked about the lady, she’d indicated they did not suit after all. She had not been an open book to him at that moment. She would not tell him what had changed her mind about the friendship.

He leaned toward Mother, his expression questioning. “What happened at that lunch between Margaret and Mrs. Gormley?”

Mother shifted in her chair. “You know your wife would wear one of her London dresses for the lunch. I suspect Mrs. Gormley felt a little put out by not being the most fashionable. She has begged Mr. Gormley for a shopping excursion to London since they were married, and that has been at least three years.”

John leaned back. “How would Mrs. Gormley know Margaret’s dress was from London?”

Mother frowned as she picked up her teacup.

“This will not do,” he said warningly. “You cannot accuse her of acting an aristocrat while sabotaging her chances to be part of our set and criticizing her interactions with the hands.”

When she scowled at her tea, his voice firmed even more. “I am in earnest. She must be allowed to fit in somewhere. Our peers know you did not favor the marriage. Your position on the matter has been duly noted by everyone and strongly felt by my wife, I assure you. I am asking you to let go of your resentment at least enough that she has a chance to make the friends she chooses. If you will not support her then at least stop undermining her.”

Mother had the grace to look chagrined, though no admission of wrongdoing passed her lips.

She ate in silence while John set aside personal musings, shifting his focus to his daily review of Marlborough’s orders. One large contract would be fulfilled and ready to ship today or tomorrow. He would begin to pay back Margaret’s principal by the middle of next year, if all went well. To continue working at this capacity, unfortunately, he would have to journey to Le Havre to buy raw cotton soon. Very soon. He’d considered taking Margaret with him, but rejected the idea, preferring to hurry across the channel, conduct his business, and return as quickly as possible.

He sifted through the papers, pausing at the accounting for the cookhouse. Margaret had been happy helping Mary last month, almost as vibrant as she’d been when handing cake to the workers the night before their wedding. The numbers on the paper disappeared as he remembered her serving “his people,” as she’d called them. He must think on it in the hopes of finding some direction for her well-meaning energy, and quickly.

*   *   *

Next week, a tiny argument as Margaret begins to assert herself. Chapter 12 will be posted on April 16! Find it here.

I partly started this writing exercise to work out in my head how John Thornton and Margaret Hale would function as a couple. In this segment, I explore not only the beginning of their marriage, but what those moments must have been like for a young woman who had been raised to be demure and virtuous.

If you need to start at the beginning, you can click here to go to Chapter One.

   She held John’s arm as they ventured from his side of Milton to the Crampton street where she’d once lived. The familiar walk cleared her head and steadied her. They shared a lighthearted conversation that would have eluded them in the early days.

Twilight tinged the sky when they returned to house. Cook brought a tray of food to the sitting room. She assured the new Mrs. Thornton that a large kettle of water for tea would simmer on the stove all night and a cold breakfast waited in the pantry. She excused herself so the newlyweds could have the house to themselves until luncheon tomorrow. 

They ate soup and biscuits in front of the crackling fireplace, the anecdotes from the day eventually dwindling to silence. John leaned on the mantle for several minutes, staring into the flames. He turned. “I would like to retire now,” he said in his direct way.

Margaret nodded and took his hand to rise, willing yet terrified, feeling exactly as Edith had warned her she would feel. When they were upstairs, he indicated she should go to her room then meet him in the sitting room again. 

She donned the long-sleeved satin nightgown Edith had insisted she have made. The V-necked bodice clung too tightly to her breasts. The waistband accentuated her hips scandalously. “Trust me,” Edith had said. “And let your hair down. He will never look at you the same way again once he has seen you in this.”

Margaret stared at herself for a long time in the glass. She brushed her hair over one shoulder, as she imagined courtesan might, the long black curls harsh against the silky white fabric. The gown gleamed through the darkness of the room, casting her as a forlorn ghost with bare feet poking from under the bottom ruffle. She smoothed her hand down the front. The gold of her wedding band flashed. She remembered her husband’s countenance as he had placed it on her finger. The memory braced her. “He loves you,” she whispered to herself. “You love him.” She forced her legs to carry her to the sitting room, ridiculously remembering Captain Lennox’s encouraging words as she slipped through the door. “Time for the charge.”

*  *  *

John rose to stand formally, as if the Queen had entered the room to find him as he was, without jacket or waistcoat, his shirt loose at the collar, neck cloth discarded. He seemed to be rendered momentarily speechless by the sight of her. 

She, too, was a little surprised. Her gaze slid down to his feet, wearing socks but no shoes. He did not say a word. What must he think of her audacious display? His hands flexed. She was about to apologize for her boldness when he finally spoke. 

“Margaret,” he said reverently. “You are so beautiful. Certainly more beautiful than a man like me deserves.”

She smiled, still not able to look at his face. “I think I am underdressed,” she said.

“Not at all,” he assured her. “When I wear a night shirt I could be mistaken for a water bird. All legs. I was afraid you would run for the train and never come back if confronted by that vision.” His teasing calmed her nerves a bit. He held out his hand. “Come, sit. You might enjoy some sherry while we talk for a moment.”

She sat on the edge of the deep-seated settee, feeling ridiculous as the hem of the indecent gown rode up to the middle of her shins, though the sight of his shoeless feet next to her bare ones encouraged her a little. He pressed a goblet in her hand. She took a fortifying drink, letting the warmth burn to her stomach as she glanced nervously around the room, noticing a small writing desk flanked by an upholstered chair that might be more comfortable for reading a book than the seats they now occupied.

“I have never spent much time up here, so I hope you will make whatever you want of it. These rooms are yours and mine, where we can be private as husband and wife, man and woman. Behind this door I ask you to speak as you will to me, to do as you like, to dress as you wish. You may be Margaret and I may be John, and neither of us will expect more or less than that.”

The solemnity and trust implied in his unexpected speech rivaled the vows they had spoken in the church. She set her glass carefully aside so she could reach for his hand. “I would like that,” she whispered.

He leaned in to kiss her. The hand that at first cupped the back of her head soon followed her long fall of hair, combing through the silken waves. He pulled back for a moment to look at the strands splayed across his palm. “Beautiful,” he murmured. He resumed kissing her, eventually dropping his fiery lips to her neck and collarbones. His arm supported her back as he arched over her. He pulled away again, his eyelids heavy. A finger traced the edge of her neckline, stopping at the quivering softness of her breast.

When he stood, she began to follow him but he leaned down to lift her in his arms. “I wish to bring you to my chamber tonight. To my bed. After this first night, we will nest wherever you prefer, but tonight I need you here.”

She digested no detail of the room except that it smelled like him, which made it much more familiar than the stranger’s room next door. He laid her in the middle of a large bed that already had the linens folded toward the foot. She felt merely foolish, there by herself, until she realized he was stripping his clothes off, silhouetted by a low fire in the hearth. She didn’t know where to look so she closed her eyes until the bed sagged with his weight. He flipped the sheet over them, covering them both up to their waists. 

He began to kiss her again, exploring her mouth as his hand travelled down her arm then up her side. She inhaled sharply as his thumb traced the peak of her breast. He took his time there, and moved to the other side then began to slide down, down, across her belly to her hip and thigh. His slow exploration made her restless. She was wondering what to do with her own hands when she felt him drawing her nightgown up, thankfully stopping at her waist. His hot palm touched her bare knee and she thought she would die from embarrassment. 

Then he became even more personal. She turned her face into his neck.

“It is all right, love,” he murmured. “It is perfect. You are beautiful. Beyond beautiful. You are exquisite.”

She did not think she ever would have felt ready. He was loving, gentle, careful, but not even Edith’s encouraging explanation could prepare a woman for that, could it? Still, when he was over her, so intensely focused on their coupling, she could sense the beauty of it poised just beyond her grasp. She could feel a hint of the unity Edith described, though, at least for tonight, newness conquered wonder.

*  *  *

John woke before the sun, as he always did, instantly aware that today was not like other days. He would not do some figuring at breakfast then arrive at the office before anyone else. He would not rush from task to task and crisis to crisis.

He turned his head to see his beloved Margaret, her hair in a wild raven tumble across the pillow, a breast still beautifully molded in the nightgown that had nearly brought him to his knees last night. He hadn’t dared remove it for fear he would be unmanned.

He rose to light the fires in all three of their rooms. When he returned to the bed and reached across her for the heavier coverlet, she moved into his side without waking. She put her head on his shoulder and curved her hand across his ribs. 

He nuzzled her hair. “You have made me so happy, love,” he whispered. He had said the same thing last night, afterwards, when she had been silent and overwhelmed, and so warmly pliant in his arms. 

He lay there as dawn brightened the room, content to feel her cozy weight beside him as he absently caressed her shoulder for an hour or two and the sounds of the mill escalated outside.

Her head jerked up when she woke. He waited to see if she might settle back down to sleep. She glanced around the room before finally looking at his face. Her eyes widened. She stared at him for a half minute, until he lifted his head to kiss her. She met him halfway. She seemed more abandoned, less analytical this morning. Greedy as he might be, he needed this with her again. Soon he ventured to lift the nightgown over her head.

“Oh, Margaret,” he whispered after admiring pale skin and perfect female curves, “you’ve struck me dumb again.” 

Her nakedness had reminded her to be shy. Her cheeks blushed furiously under his stare. She curled her hands in the sheets. He gently pried one loose to press to his bare shoulder. “Touch me as I touch you.”

“Are you sure?” she asked tremulously.

“Quite.”

She bravely followed his lead until they were both panting. “Put your hands back on my shoulders,” he ordered gruffly as he moved over her. 

She soon became very brave. She slipped her hands down his back until she could feel the powerful flex of his body. “John,” she whispered. “Please.”

“I know, love. Stay with me. Look at me,” he groaned, undone as she urged him on with her touch.

She broke, curling up into him until her lips were pressed to his chest. He had never experienced anything like it. He had never expected the body of the woman he loved to welcome him so generously. Hoped, yes, but never allowed himself the expectation.

When he had collected himself, he held her tightly, one hand cradling her head, the other draped possessively over her hip. Stupid, sated man that he was, he did not realize she was crying until she hiccupped. 

“Margaret, what is it?” he asked, trying not to sound alarmed even though he knew she could feel every muscle in his body tense. 

“You must be appalled. I mean, should I have done that?” she asked in a rush. “Was that correct? It is not very ladylike….”

He rolled her to her back so he could look down at her. His fingertips brushed the tears from her passion-flushed cheeks. “It was perfect, and I am the farthest thing from appalled. In fact, I would wager every penny I have ever earned that I am the luckiest man alive this morning.”

She blinked up at him, wanting to believe yet still worrying.

“Remember what I said last night? In these rooms we are man and woman. I love you. My body is made to show you that love.” 

She lifted a hand to his stubbly cheek. She had never imagined that the privilege of seeing Mr. John Thornton with disheveled hair and no shirt would make her heart feel like it wanted to burst. “I love you, too, John, even more than I did yesterday at this time. Isn’t that a wondrous thing?” 

*  *  *

I loved North and South so much that I wrote a sequel that I am sharing as a free serial. This week, Margaret finally comes to Milton for good, and shares the happiness of her upcoming wedding with the mill workers. If you need to start at the beginning, click to go to Chapter One.

Chapter 8 – Becoming Mrs. Thornton 

– copyright Jill Hughey 2014

Two days before the wedding, Margaret once again rode the train into the Milton station, this time accompanied by Aunt Shaw and all three Lennoxes. She saw John almost immediately, his tall hat in one hand as he searched the passing cars for a glimpse of her. When he spied Margaret, her nose all but pressed to the glass, he strode down the platform alongside the car until it glided to a stop.

He had come to London only once during the month before the wedding, visiting for only an evening and one morning last week before returning to his duties at the mill. The interlude had not been enough for either of them.

Now, she was finally here.

He brought her fingers to his lips. “Never to be parted again,” he said against her hand, his back to the others so that only she could hear the quiet, fervent words.

The waiting had, indeed, seemed endless, once they knew one another’s hearts. She smiled up at him, her eyes a little teary. She’d been glad she’d had the cakes to make with the help Dixon and Edith’s cook. They had chopped, stirred, and baked for ten days, until enough fruitcake for seven hundred slices sat wrapped in rum-soaked cheesecloth, finished and ripening before Mr. Thornton’s visit, in fact. Aromatic crates packed with cake now rode in a freight car, Miss Hale having personally supervised their loading while her family stood back, lamenting that she displayed less gentility with every passing day.

“You no longer smell like cloves,” John added with a spark in his eye.

She blushed, quelling the unseemly retort that he smelled just as he always did, of masculine soap with a hint of the mill.

He led the party to two carriages. She could not stop from looking over her shoulder at the freight car.

“The bride is worried about her cakes,” Captain Lennox said.

“Then let us see all the luggage into the wagon while the ladies wait,” Mr. Thornton suggested.

Aunt Shaw offered a beleaguered sigh to Miss Hale and Mrs. Lennox as she leaned back against the squabs. “Such fussing over these cakes, Margaret, yet you could hardly be bothered to choose trimmings for your wedding bonnet. You are becoming eccentric.”

“Yes, Aunt,” Margaret said. Nothing would mar this day. Not Aunt’s criticism or the prospect of entering the dragon’s lair. Nothing would dampen her spirits when she could look across the platform to see Mr. Thornton engaging two porters to move her precious crates, her trousseau and her companion’s traveling cases. Never to be parted again, he had whispered to her, with enough yearning in his voice to match her own. 

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Margaret spent the next morning as might be expected: consulting with Mrs. Thornton, Aunt Shaw, and Edith about the details of the upcoming wedding day. Aunt Shaw pursed her lips through most of the discussion, but managed to limit her final comment to “There is a shocking lack of flowers, lace, and attendants, but what is one to do with a bride who is more interested in making cake for peasants than ornamenting her own wedding?”

Mrs. Thornton nodded slowly, not sure if the insult targeted her, Margaret, or both of them.

Finally, in the late afternoon, Margaret was free to find Mary Higgins at the cookhouse to finalize their plan for the end of the shift, then Mary returned to the house to help with the cutting of so many slices. 

Margaret borrowed an apron from the cook and settled in at the servants’ table, since the beleaguered servant needed her kitchen free to prepare another fancy dinner for tonight.

Mary tasted a crumb of rich, tawny cake that broke away as she cut her first slice. “Oh, Miss Hale,” Mary sighed. “Such a treat this will be for the hands. All the boys have been guessing at what kind of cake you’ll serve and all the girls are talking about how they’ve never seen a proper bride.”

Margaret continued slicing while she thought about that expectation. She’d planned to wear an old gown with a serviceable, plain cloak from her prior time in Milton. She did not want to be pretentious. Perhaps, though, she should wear something nicer, for the girls. She and Mary worked steadily yet still barely finished in time for Jane to dress her for dinner.

Years of training from both her mother and Aunt Shaw prevented her from fidgeting like a child at the table. In truth, her arms were so tired from slicing cake that she could barely lift them to feed herself while the toes of her left foot tapped an irregular rhythm of excitement, safely out of sight. She had, by some miracle, been placed at John’s right. He indulged her by checking his watch regularly, knowing she wanted to be at the serving tables in the yard from the very first hand’s arrival to the last. Her commitment to the project baffled him but the anticipation in her eyes was payment enough to make him adhere to her plan.

“It is 7:45,” he said quietly as he set his napkin aside.

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“This is nonsense,” Aunt Shaw said. “You cannot mean to go out among those hordes in a satin gown. Your slippers will be ruined. Honestly, Margaret, what do you mean by all this? Isn’t it enough that you baked all those cakes by your own hand?”

Mrs. Thornton remained blessedly silent, having uttered not another word against the project after her outburst during Margaret’s visit.

“I know I am a disappointment, Aunt,” Margaret said as she allowed John to lead her from the room. Jane waited at the door with her best cloak, an elegant black creation lined with a shimmering pale blue satin that matched her gown.

Mrs. Thornton, Aunt Shaw and all the Lennoxes were watching from the house windows as the noisy mill equipment ground to a stop. Streams of disheveled workers, eager to get home, poured from the buildings. Mary and her crew had set up five tables far enough apart that separate lines could form, two for men, two for women, and one for children, to try to avoid any bullying. Boys ran ahead of the crowd at full tilt to be the first then cried out with excitement as they shoved the first bites of the treat into their mouths. The queues at the tables quickly lengthened.

Margaret stood among the waiting women and children, her gown gleaming like liquid silver in the light of the lamps as she greeted her special guests. The workers stood back timidly until one girl with her head wrapped tightly in a kerchief pointed to the silver comb in Margaret’s hair. “You look like a princess.”

“I am not. I’m just a regular person, like you.”

An older girl asked if she could touch her cloak. Soon, women clustered around her and sighed at the smoothness of the satin. “Feels like a puppies ear,” one said.  “Or a baby’s ass,” suggested another. They all laughed companionably, including Margaret.

John stayed by the men’s tables, tall enough to keep an eye on Miss Hale over the crowd. Some of the men who knew him offered congratulations and gave him joking permission to be off work for his wedding tomorrow. “We’ll keep your place for you for one day, master,” they said, mocking the overseer’s voice. “After that, off you go.”

He nodded with uncharacteristic familiarity and humor. “Fair enough.”

Most of the workers stood in the yard to eat their cake, taking this unprecedented moment to talk with friends without the clatter of the workplace interfering. They admired the pretty young bride who seemed such an amiable contrast to the unbending master. She moved among the clusters of people now, urging extra slices on them to take home to their families. A clump of boys followed her, hoping for third or fourth servings. 

Someone began to play a tiny flute. With the unplanned music came singing and even dancing for a few tunes, until the cakes were gone and the exhaustion of the workday caught up with the hearty laborers. John had come to Margaret’s side when the joviality began, and Higgins and the overseer stood behind, so she felt quite secure as a few of the workers made free to thank her for her kindness to them.

One of the rougher men bobbed before her, a nubby cap clutched in his hands. “All the lads will want to work here at Marlborough when they hear that pretty ladies hand out cake at the end of the day.”

“I am sure the master is satisfied to keep those of you who have been so productive and loyal,” Miss Hale assured him. She smiled and waved as the last of them left.

She thanked Mary and her helpers before John led her toward the house. She paused in the shadows of the front steps, rising on tiptoe to give John a quick, shy kiss.

“Well done,” he murmured. “Now, will you be content to concentrate on marrying me instead of feeding my employees?”

“I have always been concentrating on that. I wish the sun would begin to rise right this minute so our wedding would be that much sooner,” she said wistfully, earning another, deeper kiss.

“We must not forget this,” he said as he dug in a jacket pocket. “Though I will expect you to give it back to me tomorrow.”

She admired the heavy gold band. “Does it fit?”

“It does.” He kissed her again, with more passion than he had allowed to rise between them before, until she was breathless and her hands gripped his coat. He reluctantly released her lips to move his mouth to her forehead. They stood quietly until the autumn air cooled them enough to return to the house.

Margaret might have been floating on clouds high in the sky for all that she heard of her aunt’s scolding. “Look at the smudges on your gown. Some urchin has been using your skirt for a napkin!”

Mrs. Thornton again remained blessedly quiet.

*  *  *

Click here to continue to Chapter 9, the wedding, which will be posted on March 26!

As Margaret and John entered the mill yard, the smell of food wafted to the gate. “Is that coming from the mill’s dining room?” Margaret asked.

“‘Dining room’ pays it more of a compliment than it deserves. We have no linens or fine china on the tables, I assure you,” John replied.

“What do you call it, then? Can I see it?”

He checked his watch. “We have a few minutes before Mother expects us.” He knew Margaret had been a friend to some of the workers. She would not be disgusted, as other ladies might, by the mean manners or rustic clothing of the laborers.

The interior of the brick cookhouse was dark but smelled divine. “Miss Hale?” a timid voice called.

“Mary Higgins!” Margaret said, rushing to embrace the young woman. John stood back, not wishing to intrude on the reunion with the shy girl whom, he had to admit, had gained ability and confidence from her work in the cookhouse. 

A few hands were eating an early supper. Always attuned to conversations around him, he could hear snippets of their whispered comments. “…richer than a queen now, some say.” “Hale, the one who’ll marry the master.” “…helped Boucher’s children.”

He heard Margaret promise Mary she would visit again soon, and beg for her to tell her father, Nicholas, that she was eager to see him as well. John did not mind her friendship with that family. He knew enough of Higgin’s character that he considered him a friend, too, of a sort. His lips thinned with a suppressed smile. Who would ever imagine such a thing before Miss Hale had challenged him to speak — and listen — to his hands as he would to other men?

She returned to him and he brought her to Mother. He retreated only as far as his desk in the sitting room. He worked on his ledger while the sound of their voices eased the tedium of figuring the numbers. His mother’s voice, so familiar and succinct, came to his ear easily, but the lower tones of his beloved teased him, sometimes too quiet to decipher the words. In just one month, her gentle voice would be a daily sound in his house, perhaps the first voice he heard each morning and the last before he went to sleep. 

He hoped it would be so.

Deep in the cotton fluff of such romantic musings, he heard Mother’s voice sharpen. “I know you have sympathetic sensibilities, but that is taking your ideas too far.”

He sat back in his chair. He wanted honest speaking but would not have Mother riding over Margaret’s feelings the second day in a row.

“I do not wish for anything as elaborate the wedding breakfast, of course. A simple meal would make them feel included.”

“Next you’ll want me to host their weddings.”

“No — ”

Mother interrupted. “There are hundreds of hands, too many to feed all at once.” She brushed at her black skirt. “I thought Fanny had outlandish ideas of how much attention her wedding should have,” she said disapprovingly.

Margaret bowed her head. John strained to hear her denial. “I did not mean it as attention for myself.”

“What is this about?” he asked quietly.

Mother rose to her feet, stiff and righteous. “She thinks we should have a meal for the hands the day before the wedding. As if I won’t have plenty to do.”

“I do not expect you to provide it,” Margaret insisted. “Mary Higgins and I could manage.”

“Pshh,” Mother scoffed as she paced across the wool rug, arms folded in stubborn irritation.

“Why?” he asked. Mother stopped. He did not want to challenge her so soon, but Margaret’s idea intrigued him.

“They are your people,” Margaret explained. “They returned to Marlborough Mills when you needed them. You told me on the train that they have brought the mill back up to production faster than you thought possible.”

“And now you want your due,” Mother said sharply. “You want all of them to meet Miss Margaret Hale, the great financier who gave them their jobs and now feeds the masses.”

Margaret went pale at the accusation. “They do not know about Mr. Bell’s money. How could they?” she asked, her voice resonating with denial.

“These laborers you love so well are not a simple as you think. They always know what direction the money flows,” Mrs. Thornton sneered.

Margaret turned to look at John, stricken. “I do not seek any recognition. I want them to see me as a friend, as they always have.” He rose to walk to her. 

Mother spoke before he could offer any reassurance. “You expect to be a friend to the workers, even as Mrs. John Thornton?” she scoffed.

“Yes, of course,” Margaret said briskly. “I will be even more intimately connected with them because they are Mr. Thornton’s people.”

“I am his people!” Mother cried. She turned to glare at them, saw his hand on Margaret’s shoulder, and heard the seed of greedy truth in the words still echoing around the three of them. Her son was everything to her. He was all she had, the only sign of accomplishment in her life. She had been all he had, too, since the death of his father.

No more.

Somehow this vicar’s offspring had taken his heart. The wretched girl had not wanted his affection, leaving him to endure tortured, unrequited love for over a year. As a mother, Mrs. Thornton could not rejoice in his suffering, though she had hoped to never, ever, call this flower with a sturdy stem ‘daughter’. Now the flower bloomed here, looking pale and not very sturdy at all, yet he stood with her, his eyebrows arched in an expression of annoyance he usually saved for Fanny.

I must adjust, she thought. For better or worse, Miss Margaret Hale would be John’s people as well, and the old Mrs. Thornton had better learn to get along or she might lose her son for good. 

“Excuse me,” she said as she walked stiltedly to the door. “I must see about dinner.”

Margaret shook her head as Mrs. Thornton’s footsteps echoed from the hall and then the steps to the downstairs. “I am sorry,” she said. “I never dreamt my idea would lead to such an argument.”

He squatted down and took both her hands in his. “She knows she was wrong just then. As you can imagine, she is not very good at apologizing, but she will adjust in how she thinks of you. Now, tell me what you wish to do for the workers.”

*  *  *

Dinner was nearly silent as each party mused on the argument from his or her own perspective. Margaret had been trained from girlhood to maintain a conversation in social situations. Tonight, she foundered. Topics that were interesting in Helstone or appropriate in London only sounded inane in Milton.

It was a relief when Jane meekly entered the dining room. “I am sorry, sir, but there is someone at the kitchen door to see Miss Hale.”

“Who is it?” he asked.

“Mr. Higgins, sir,” she said, her eyes flicking nervously to Mrs. Thornton.

Margaret tried not to smile with anticipation as she excused herself, already sliding her chair back before John could assist her. Any interruption short of fire would have pleased her, but the prospect of seeing her old friend made her truly happy.

Mr. Higgins waited outside. John seemed momentarily uncertain where to entertain a mill hand while his mother fumed in the dining room above them. They settled at the servant’s table below stairs. Higgins agreed to have a cup of tea and a taste of the rolled jam pudding Miss Hale and Mr. Thornton had foregone due to his visit. 

“I came after my shift,” he said. “Didn’t know how long you’d be in Milton this time, though I was happy to hear you’ll be a proper resident soon.”

Miss Hale quizzed him on the welfare of the people she knew in his neighborhood, and when she felt satisfactorily informed, she looked to Mr. Thornton. “Perhaps we could ask Mr. Higgins what he thinks of my idea?”

John had not been entirely enamored of her wish to host a wedding meal for the mill hands. He had patiently explained to Margaret that, though he may have expanded his scope of responsibilities toward his workers in the past year, he still abhorred the idea of any kind of charity. The hands paid a tiny sum for the meals at the cookhouse, for example. “I think that Mr. Higgins may be just the adviser we need,” he agreed.

“I had hoped to have a meal for the hands on the day before the wedding. Something simple, but enough so they feel included. We are all part of Marlborough Mills, after all.”

Higgins was not the instant champion she had imagined. In fact, he could not hide his skepticism. “I only know what my Mary does to feed a few at a time. To have food for hundreds…and all off work at the same time…and then there’s those who won’t go back straight away after a break like that.” He looked up under his brow at Mr. Thornton. “The mill would be closed for hours.”

Margaret sagged in defeat. “That will never do.”

“ ‘haps something at the end of the shift? A little something that the hands could stay and enjoy in the yard, or take home.”

Margaret perked back up. She looked at the crumbs of pudding left on the plate in front of Mr. Higgins. “Cake,” she said. “Is that acceptable?” she asked, turning to John. “May we give each of them a slice of cake the night before the wedding?” she asked eagerly.

“That seems a fair compromise,” he said.

“I will take care of everything,” she assured him. “I will make the cakes — or at least help — in London so I can bring them with me. It will be no trouble to Mrs. Thornton at all. I promise you.”

“You will wear yourself out,” he cautioned.

“I must have an activity other than wedding gown fittings to fill the next four weeks.” In truth, the thought of returning to London, of once again separating from John, made her knees wobble more than facing down the dragon.

Higgins rose to leave. “It does my heart good to see the two of you. Think what Bessy would say about you marrying the master!”

They followed him out, standing in the dark near the stable yard as he began his walk home. “What a day!” she said. “It seems like another lifetime when Mrs. Thornton took me on a tour of the house, yet it was just this morning.”

He slipped an arm around her shoulder. She willingly moved into his side and looked up into his face. It was the only invitation he required to lean down for a kiss. As he tasted her mouth, her fingertips pressed into the lapels of his jacket.

“Ah, love,” he murmured, his hands tight on her waist. “Four more weeks. It is an eternity we will both struggle to fill.”

*   *   *

Chapter 8 will be posted on March 19. The wedding approacheth!

After the tension-wracked dinner, John took advantage of a few private moments to reassure Margaret. “We made you uncomfortable, almost immediately. I should have stopped Mother so you could enjoy more than three bites of your dinner.”

“I had hoped if I did not cower this first time, she would begin to respect me,” Margaret admitted with a shaky voice. “Now I am sure I have destroyed her opinion of me entirely. I only hope she learns to tolerate me, for your sake.” 

John gazed down at her, his heart full of sympathy. “She will do more than tolerate you, love.”

She frowned, struggling with her thoughts. “You knew the temperament of my father quite well,” she said cautiously. “It will not surprise you that there was very little plain speech in my home. Perhaps I will be allowed to sit and listen to you and Mrs. Thornton for a year or two before I engage in battle?” she finished with a brave attempt at a smile.

“It will not take that long,” he said, chucking her lightly under her chin. “Give her time to see in you what it took me two years to finally ascertain.”

She managed to hold her tremulous smile. “I do not think she will be looking quite as fervently as you did.”

He frowned at her uncertainty. He wanted Margaret to feel welcomed here. Her home in Milton — the home she remembered as having very little plain speech —had been a source of immediate comfort to him. Surprisingly, he yearned for some of the quiet camaraderie and affection he had seen in the Hale family, a yearning Mother would never understand. She would accede, however, to a direct request that she refrain from challenging Margaret so directly in the future. “I will speak to her,” he promised solemnly.

“No. Please do not,” Margaret begged. “We will work it out between us, I am sure.”

“I do not want your first days as my wife to be anticipated as a time of conflict.”

“Nor do I, but I have acted both as silent observer and as intercessor enough to know that neither role suits me.”

He cocked his head slightly. “What do you mean?”

“I had just begun making decisions for myself when you came to London.” She sighed, turning to study a glass-domed arrangement of wax flowers and preserved butterflies. “I’ve had a great deal of time to think about my parents, of course, and I wonder if they had ever had a forthright conversation in their entire marriage.”

The fine lines of her profile, her honesty, made his heart thud. Long before he had ever earned the right, he’d imagined the kind of marriage he would have with Margaret. She might now be offering a glimpse into what she might want from their union. The prospect narrowed his focus until there was only Margaret. He waited, trying to be patient when he sensed her reluctance to continue.

“Your father seemed to be a great communicator of ideas. Surely they talked,” he said, hoping to encourage her to talk. 

“On questions of religion or which neighbor needed a charitable basket of food, yes, they talked. They carefully avoided any topic that might cause upheaval.” She would not look at him. In fact, she dropped her chin as if what she was about to say embarrassed her, or shamed her. “I had the task of telling my mother that my father planned to leave the clergy and move us to Milton. Then, in less than a year, I affirmed to my father than my mother was dying. I think it will be much better if we adults speak up for ourselves, as you suggested at dinner.”

He inserted himself between her and the floral arrangement she had pretended to admire so he could enfold her in his arms. She laid her forehead against his lapel and pressed her hands flat on his chest. Her acceptance of his comfort incited a burst of passion in him, like a flash fire started by an innocent flame in a room of cotton fluff. He caressed her back, the only liberty he allowed himself since they were standing in the sitting room.

Despite the strength of her independent words, she felt delicate under his hands. The flowery scent of her hair teased his nostrils and he thought, I have imagined this moment, dreamed of holding her thus, so many times. He bent his head until the hair arranged in a soft wave at the top of her head teased his lips, reaffirming that she really, truly stood here, pliant in his embrace.

“My dearest Margaret. I arrogantly think I know all about you, then these little details of your past smite me.” He brushed a kiss on her temple. “My dearest love.” He noticed his mother frozen in the shadows beyond the doorway, innocently trapped there when she had been on her way to join them for what he supposed would be a quiet evening. He continued to hold his fiancée for a few more seconds in a nearly chaste yet deeply meaningful embrace. He would not shrink from showing Margaret his love in the privacy of his home any more than he would stop his mother from speaking the truth to him.

*  *  *

Mr. Thornton woke early and breakfasted with Mother, as he always did. He went to the mill until mid-day, certain that he should not abandon Margaret entirely, and even more certain that he wanted to steal as much time as possible with her. He found her and Mother at a sunny window in Mother’s favorite sitting room. They were comparing two pieces of creamy fabric, and several fashion plates lay on a table nearby. He did not exactly hide but stood back to see how they were getting along.

“Which do you think would be best, Mrs. Thornton?” Margaret asked. “I have narrowed it down to these two from twenty choices my cousin gave me. Perhaps this one is too glossy for the simpler cut of gown we chose?”

“Perhaps,” Mrs. Thornton said, rubbing her hand over one of the pieces. He could tell his mother agreed but did not want to admit it. He strode into the room.

Margaret scurried to hide the pictures and samples. 

“Have no fear, Miss Hale,” he said. “Though I make fabric for my living, I have no idea what to do with it or how to visualize it in a garment after it is made.”

She smiled and blushed. Mrs. Thornton touched the sample Margaret had preferred. “That one will do,” she said, her words clipped.

To Mother’s dismay and Margaret’s obvious delight, he accompanied them to their meeting with the vicar where they made quick work of setting a date just four weeks hence. Surprisingly, Mother then asked to meet them at home in an hour to plan the wedding breakfast, granting them a short respite to do as they wished. 

He vastly enjoyed Miss Hale’s small, feminine presence next to him as they strolled down the familiar Milton streets. She wore a pink striped gown that brought out the roses in her cheeks. He could not resist covering her hand with his own as they walked. They stopped several times among the shops and market stalls to greet friends and acquaintances eager to congratulate them. 

On their way again, he paused in front of the goldsmiths. “We will need rings,” he suggested quietly.

“Are we supposed to do that together?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” he said, teasing her.

“Of course, how else will we get the right size?” she said.

He pushed the door open. The jeweler greeted them happily. “Mr. Thornton! Are the happy rumors I have heard true? They must be!” he decided as he beamed as Margaret.

Mr. Thornton frowned, never pleased to be the subject of gossip, even if it was the happiest gossip of his life. “We are here to look at wedding rings,” he snapped.

“Then this must be Miss Hale,” the man enthused. “Ah, yes, now I recognize you, though we have never met.”

She nodded politely. “It is a pleasure, sir.”

“Wedding rings, eh? Hold out your hand for me, m’dear.” He clucked his tongue as she did. “Something dainty for you, I think,” he muttered as he pawed through a display case. At length he produced a slotted velvet flat that cradled nine narrow bands. He pointed to a slim ring with floral working in the gold. “Try that one, I think.” He chewed on the side of his thumb as she slid it onto her left ring finger. The fit was perfect, and the delicate ring complemented her short fingers.

She smiled up into Mr. Thornton’s suddenly glowing blue eyes, saying “This shopkeeper knows his trade. Shall we see how well he does for you?”

“Mr. Thornton needs something much heavier,” the goldsmith advised as he looked at John’s long-fingered hand where it rested on the top of the case. “He is a large man, a well-respected businessman — we are all so glad to hear the mill at work again, if I may say so, sir — and a person of your distinction needs an impressive ring.”

“Not ostentatious,” Mr. Thornton warned.

“No, sir, of course not. Simple, like your Miss Hale’s, just more of it, I think.” He knelt down again to dig through the display, lifting another nine rings free. 

He had barely set the flat down when Margaret’s eye settled on one. She began to reach for it, stopping herself when her hand had barely twitched on the counter. 

The goldsmith looked at her from under bushy gray brows. “Which one, m’dear? I can see you spotted one you like.”

John’s curiosity was obvious. He gave her a slight nod at her inquiring look. 

“That one,” she suggested, pointing to a band three times wider than her own in brightly polished gold, decorated only by a tiny line of beading on each edge.

“It will need to be sized,” the merchant warned. “You have large hands but thin fingers, Mr. Thornton.”

The ring did indeed slide on too freely, yet looked at home there, shining fiercely and filling a large portion of the first segment of his finger. John cleared his throat. “Can you size it for me? Bring both rings and the bill to Marlborough Mills when they are ready.”

On the street again, Margaret asked, “Should I not have the privilege of paying for my husband’s ring?”

“Not at all,” John said. “And when the mill is producing well again, I intend to add a jeweled ring to your wedding band. I thought of it in London but cannot yet do you justice.”

“You know you need not worry about such ornaments for me, John,” she said softly, with a gentle squeeze to his arm to reinforce her words.

“It is not a worry, m’dear,” he assured her with a snort that only she could hear. “Do all merchants talk so freely with young women? The goldsmith used more endearments on you than I feel at liberty to in public.”

A housemaid returning from the cobbler’s shop turned at the tinkling of laughter, so unusual on the bustling streets of Milton. She was surprised to see such a sunny young lady smiling at the severe Mr. Thornton, though, as she studied the couple, she noticed he had his head lowered to listen to his companion’s quiet words, his hand curled possessively over the fingers on his arm, and he had shortened his normally ground-eating stride to something that almost suggested he was accompanying the cheerful lady on a pleasant stroll.

*   *   *

The next installment was posted on March 12, in which Margaret begins to be reunited with her other Milton friends. You can find it here.

If you haven’t yet started my free serial sequel to Elizabeth Gaskell’s North and South, you can find the first chapter here, then follow the links at the end of each post to the next. I add a new episode each Wednesday. Last week ended with a series of letters, mostly from John to Margaret, as they struggled through a few weeks apart, trying to form a plan for their wedding in Milton without much encouragement from John’s mother or Margaret’s aunt.

Chapter 5 – Becoming Mrs. Thornton – copyright Jill Hughey 2014

Margaret tugged on the strings of her reticule, listening avidly for the sounds of an approaching locomotive. Mr. Thornton, whom she had not seen in weeks, should arrive on the train at any moment. They would return together to Milton where she would stay under the same roof with him and his dragon. (It was sinful for her to think of Mrs. Thornton by that term. She simply could not help it after the horrid letter that had neither welcomed her visit nor congratulated her on the engagement. Indeed, the terse instructions could have been intended for a maid about to enter servitude at the house at Marlborough Mills!)

Captain Lennox had escorted her to the station and now rocked on the balls of his feet, enjoying the bustle of activity around them, unaware of his cousin-in-law’s pulse soaring as the southbound train thumped and screeched on the rails. Margaret scanned the opening doors of the carriages. She spied Mr. Thornton as he unfolded himself a few cars away. He stepped onto the platform before the train had even stopped.

“Ah, there he is,” the captain said. “Mr. Thornton, I have taken the liberty of buying Miss Hale’s ticket,” he called as a greeting.

Margaret did not speak. She could not, silenced again by the fact that Mr. Thornton was real, that he had come for her, that she would, indeed, go with him to plan their wedding in Milton. He shook her hand then tucked it around his arm, keeping his fingers pressed over hers as he and Captain Lennox shared the normal trivialities. She realized she was squeezing his forearm in an unladylike way, but when she relaxed her grip, he tightened his hand over hers as if he liked the pressure. He gazed down at her for a moment with a burning, hawkish focus that made her breath catch until his attention returned to Captain Lennox.

The northbound train came within a quarter hour. Captain Lennox helped with her few pieces of luggage, and then she was bundled into a carriage car with Mr. Thornton.

The train pulled out. Mr. Thornton turned to her and captured her face between his hands despite the rocking of the car. He leaned his forehead against hers. “Let us not be separated again for so long, love. I have been hard at work yet only half there all these weeks.”

She nodded and let herself be drawn in against him. He kissed her, thoroughly and well, before he nestled her against his side, where they rode for a long time in silence, blissful enough in their companionship to not need conversation.

*  *  *

Mrs. Thornton’s welcome was everything civil and nothing warm. Margaret was not surprised by their interaction, nor by the comfortable yet severe guest chamber she was assigned, nor by the directive to be at the dinner table in an hour. She was given the service of a maid named Jane, whom she recognized as one who had been in the house during the riot.

After changing into an evening dress and allowing Jane to arrange her hair in a feminine manner that need not survive the rigors of travel, Margaret dismissed the servant. She stood at the window to look down on the cobbles of the yard and the mill hands who continued their labors even though twilight dimmed the sky. The workers talked, and sometimes shouted, as they went from one building to another, carting and carrying with the industriousness of northern people. The white fluff of cotton offered the only softness in the scene, where it blew into the corners and caught at the edges of walls and curbs, muting the sooty, muddy angles of things.

Fifty-eight minutes after entering her room, she exited again to follow the dim hall to the stairs. John waited below, his lips curved in a restrained smile, his shirt for the evening blindingly white. “It is such a great pleasure to have you here,” he murmured when she reached the bottom step.

“Thank you,” she quietly replied, well aware of Mrs. Thornton who hovered at the door to the dining room, her face pale and sharp above the high black neckline of her gown. They sat, the three of them, rather spread out at the table, Mrs. Thornton pointedly occupying the end she would be expected to relinquish some undetermined day in October.

“I believe the last time you dined here was during the strike,” Mrs. Thornton observed over her soup.

“You hosted the dinner for a Mr. Horsfall, if I am not mistaken,” Miss Hale replied. “I was surprised at that time at how much I enjoyed the conversation of the men. I suppose that was the beginning of my education in business,” she said with a smile to John.

Mrs. Thornton held her spoon paused in mid-air. “I believe you to have been more sympathetic to the strikers, at that time, than to men like my son, who nearly lost his business due to that strike.”

Margaret was not surprised at Mrs. Thornton’s words. The woman had never trusted or liked her, and had discouraged her son’s affections accordingly. Margaret could only be thankful, if puzzled, by her making her attack so early and with John in the room. 

“I think I have learned to be sympathetic to both sides,” Margaret ventured.

“Do you still have a soft-hearted affinity for the hands?” Mrs. Thornton asked.

“Mother,” Mr. Thornton said, the warning clear though dampered by an indulgent softening at the corners of his eyes.

Margaret swirled her spoon through her broth. “I was raised as a vicar’s daughter. My days were filled with helping the unfortunate members of our parish through activities you would call charity, Mrs. Thornton. When we came to Milton, I became friends with the Higgins family, especially with the daughter, Bessy, who was dying of consumption caused by her work in a mill, though not here at Marlborough. Through them, I became aware of Boucher’s family, and others, whom we helped to feed during the strike, even though Mr. Thornton had explained that this only extended their agony.” She looked up from her bowl to Mrs. Thornton. “I do not think I would change my actions during that time,” she admitted quietly. “I was watching a friend die from her work, watching innocent children starve, and almost on the same day I observed those injustices, I came here for a lavish dinner given by those who — forgive me! — claimed to be unable to pay a better wage.”

She paused while Mrs. Thornton frowned back at her. The mouth might not literally breath fire but her eyes fairly crackled with heat. When the matron remained silent, Margaret continued. “As I said, my view has broadened enough to understand that the disparity is not so simple to explain and that blame cannot so easily be placed on one party or another. I can only claim now to be sympathetic to both sides, partly guided by Mr. Thornton who, I believe has personally supported the schooling of two of the Boucher children and has also allowed for a source of sustaining food for his workers here at the mill.”

The dragon could hardly argue against the actions of her own idolized son, even though she made it clear she did not condone them. “I am not certain his broadened views will be good for his business. My son is a hard man because he has had to be,” she insisted.

“To be sure. Yet, his kindnesses make him worthy of respect in all circles, including those of his workers,” Margaret said quietly, letting the footman take her barely tasted soup. “I am not certain how to assign a monetary value to respect, though Mr. Thorton did tell me that some of the hands voiced a willingness to work for him should the opportunity arise.”

“A happy circumstance that made restarting the mill much easier,” he interjected. He leaned to one side, peering past the tall centerpiece to observe his mother. “I warned you, Mother, that Miss Hale may appear to be a soft flower but she has a sturdy stem. I assure you, her only action during the strike that I regret is her putting her head in the way of the wooden clog that was meant for mine.”

Mrs. Thornton pressed her lips closed.

John continued, “This plain speech pleases me, even if you both have spoken about me as if I am not here. You know, Miss Hale, my mother has always been my confidant. We enjoy open discourse on every topic we discuss. It is my hope that you will never shrink from expressing your opinion in our household.”

Margaret could see that his support of her actions and his invitation to join in their open discourse wounded Mrs. Thornton. For her own part, she could not imagine having to explain herself so candidly more than once a fortnight, or perhaps even once a month, no matter how sturdy John claimed her to be, or how much encouragement he offered.

The servant presented a platter of trout, and she thought she knew how the fishes must have felt in their last moments of freedom, when they shimmered in a clear burbling stream. She’d been eager to take the delicious bait of John’s love, but a barbed hook had been set, too.

Chapter Six will be posted here on March 5, 2014.